


it's not always black and wight

by elldotsee



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Ghosts, Halloween, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elldotsee/pseuds/elldotsee
Summary: By the time he turned eight, Sherlock had had more supernatural experiences than he could count or recall. He’d grown used to flickering lights, the whispers in the night, the sudden appearance of apparitions in the corridors. The dead were just as much a part of his life as the living. He went about his business, never disrupting theirs.Sometimes he talked to them, but they never talked back. Sometimes, he heard their stories second-hand, in the snippets of conversation between his parents at the dinner table, but they were never spoken about like real people. They were simply characters that formed the tapestry of the house, bumps and flickers of a life stuck in the in-between.That is, until he met Victor.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Victor Trevor, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson
Comments: 150
Kudos: 84
Collections: Sherlock Author Showcase 2020, Spooky Johnlock Collection





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock Holmes was four years old when he saw his first ghost.

She was a young woman, dressed in a high-necked lace nightgown that covered her feet. She appeared at the top of the stairs one night when he’d slipped from bed for a glass of water.

“Hello,” he said softly as he approached her. 

She regarded him with dark eyes but said nothing.

“Are you a ghost?” His childlike excitement made his voice rise in volume, and he froze, waiting to see if it would stir anyone else from sleep. When the house remained silent, he repeated his question in a more appropriately hushed tone. 

The young woman nodded slowly, then turned and floated down the corridor. 

Sherlock knew he was supposed to follow, but a yawn cracked his jaw then, sending a shiver through his small frame. 

“Maybe tomorrow,” he murmured politely, his eyelids already drooping.

He tiptoed back to his bed and fell quickly asleep.

It never occurred to him to be afraid.

oOoOoOoOo 

By the time he turned eight, Sherlock had had more supernatural experiences than he could count or recall. He’d grown used to flickering lights, the whispers in the night, the sudden appearance of apparitions in the corridors. The dead were just as much a part of his life as the living. He went about his business, never disrupting theirs.

Sometimes he talked to them, but they never talked back. Sometimes, he heard their stories second-hand, in the snippets of conversation between his parents at the dinner table, but they were never spoken about like real people. They were simply characters that formed the tapestry of the house, bumps and flickers of a life stuck in the in-between.

That is, until he met Victor.

The Holmes family had just moved into their ninth house in less than two years. This was how they earned their living: by moving into the residences of their clients, namely men and women who wanted contact with the deceased. Mummy and Father would spend the first few weeks in a new place learning its history, spending countless hours at the library, squinting at the tiny text of the microfiche machines. Sometimes, Sherlock was allowed to operate the dial. Sometimes, he sat adjacent and read through his own issue of a yellowed newspaper, trying to piece together a story of a life lived long ago. 

Occasionally, he stumbled upon articles that fascinated him – LOCAL POLICE STUMPED. COLD CASE. NO NEW EVIDENCE. He thought about the bad guys that got away with doing bad things, the ones that slipped through the fingers of the police officers, even though the police were supposed to be the good guys and really smart. Knowing that people got away with a lot made Sherlock feel uncomfortable and he would shut off the machine in anger and stalk off towards the stacks to find a book about pirates to distract him. At least everyone knew the pirates were the bad guys. They didn’t hide who they were.

After Mummy and Father had learned all there was to know about the history of a house, they would begin their investigation. They would spend a few days sleeping while Sherlock was at school, waking in time for dinner together, as was the Holmes' custom. Sherlock's parents would have serious conversations with him over dinner— they had always spoken to him like an adult, in real proper English. They knew he was intelligent so they didn’t waste time dumbing down their language even though he was young. 

Sometimes they even allowed him to chime in on discussions about what they would do that night. Mummy and Father explained how they would use the tools of their trade to try and find any evidence of paranormal activity. They would stay awake throughout the night, adjusting their equipment, making notes and observations. Sherlock loved that part in particular and sometimes he was allowed to stay up late and watch as they set up the video cameras with its infrared sensors or the electromagnetic meter. Sometimes he would tell his parents where he saw or heard something and they would take note of it in one of the matching, leather-bound notebooks where they recorded all of their data. Sometimes, he was even asked to repeat his statement into a tape recorder. Father always nodded seriously on those occasions and thanked him for his testimony. Sherlock liked giving his testimonies — a word he had learned from his Father. It meant telling a story about what he had heard and seen. Sherlock liked knowing big words; he collected them in his brain and used them any time he could. He always felt proud of himself when he did, even though it usually made the other children — with their simple, boring words — get annoyed with him because they didn’t understand. 

It was October when the Holmes family moved to the village of Borley. Sherlock was eight years old and though he still loved the excitement of the investigations, he was growing tired of the constant relocation. He didn’t have any friends. He never bothered getting to know any of the other children because they were all the same — boring and cruel — and even if they weren’t, he wouldn’t be around long enough for them to prove otherwise. Most of his parents’ projects took just a few months to complete and then it was onto the next house, next village, next bedroom, next school, next group of village adults’ hushed conversations any time they went into town, and the next group of children hell bent on picking on the strange newcomer. In the four days he’d been at Borley Village Primary School, these old patterns had repeated themselves once again. 

The other children whispered about him in the corridors, loud enough for him to hear. There’s the weird kid who lives in the haunted house. I heard his parents are Satan worshippers. Witches. I heard his whole family was killed and they're all actually ghosts now. That particular schoolmate had pushed him hard enough that he'd fallen; the best he could hope for was that the bruises would prove he was still very much amongst the living.

He had become skilled at ignoring the stares and murmurings by burying his nose in a book or finding a hiding place during breaks. He tried to arrive at school just as the bell rang and hurried out and home as soon as the teacher announced the end of the final lesson. Usually, that kept the other children from paying attention to him too much.

Usually.

“Oi! You’re the new kid, right?” A boy with tousled reddish hair and too many freckles to count asked as Sherlock passed through the school gate that afternoon.

Sherlock nodded but kept walking. The boy pushed off of the wrought iron and followed him.

“I’m Andy.” Freckles continued, quickening his steps to match Sherlock’s longer ones. 

Sherlock was at least a head taller than the boy, his arms and legs long and gangly after his most recent growth spurt. 

Andy smiled at Sherlock, a quick flash of teeth, before continuing. “I just moved here last year and didn’t have any friends either. What are you going to be for Halloween?”

Sherlock glanced sidelong at the boy. “A pirate,” he said shortly, holding up the book he had clutched in his hands. “Captain Flint.”

Andy made an “O” of understanding with his mouth before jabbing his thumb into his chest. “I’m going to be a ghost. Boo!” 

He lunged at Sherlock and Sherlock flinched, sending the boy into a raucous fit of giggles. “Ghosts are your thing, innit? Living in that Pomeroy place, I bet you’re friends with them all! Me mum said a boy died there. Does that mean you’re next, Ghost Boy?”

Andy then spun around, a wide grin on his face as he bounded away, still laughing loudly. 

Sherlock’s face felt hot and his eyes pricked, but he tucked his chin and stared at the cracks in the pavement as he hurried home. He was mad; mad at himself most of all for falling for Andy’s trickery, for allowing himself to hope that Andy would be the exception to his rule that all other children were terrible and mean. As he walked, he tried hard to imagine himself brave like Captain Flint or even Captain Nemo, pretending the peals of cruel laughter he could still hear — now in chorus with several of the other boys still hanging around the schoolyard — were nothing but the caws of seagulls as he sailed across the vast Atlantic. Were he a real pirate, he’d sail all the way to America but he wouldn’t stop there. He’d stay at sea, maybe forever, on his massive and impressive ship with only a dog for company. He’d sail all around the world, fighting off any other pirates he came across, outsmarting them with his impressive knowledge, and only resorting to swordfights if they persisted. He didn’t like violence, but he did like swords. 

When Sherlock was just five, he’d been allowed to sit in on some of his brother Mycroft’s fencing lessons so long as he promised to stay put and not make a sound. He had watched — with rapt fascination and his small hands tucked under his bottom so he wouldn’t be tempted to move — as the two boys had lunged and spun in their delicate dance. Later, he had begged Mycroft to teach him some of the moves. His parents had promised he could begin his own fencing lessons as soon as he was of age, but the next village they moved to didn't have any fencing clubs, and by the time they moved again, his parents had forgot all about it. 

Sherlock sniffed and kicked at some dark red leaves that were scattered in the gutter, unearthing a long stick which he picked up. He glanced around to confirm that there wasn’t anyone around to see with the exception of an old man sweeping the flagstone in front of his house. Once he'd rounded a corner, out of sight of the man, Sherlock waved his makeshift sword in a wide arc, grunting and muttering under his breath as though in the throes of battle. 

The pirate he most would have liked to be was Howell Davis — he was clever and relied more on disguises and tricks to vanquish his enemies rather than just crude swashbuckling. Not that Davis hadn't been a great swordsman; he'd simply preferred a more intelligent approach to his craft.

“Ahoy, civilians! Fear me and my wielded sword or I’ll make you join my crew!” Sherlock declared just as he pushed open the heavy wrought iron gate that led to the Holmes family’s latest residence. Home seemed like too strong a word for such a temporary place to sleep. Home implied commitment, longevity, security... security... He heaved a loud sigh, something he had learned from Mycroft the last time his older brother came to visit from school. 

Once the gate was closed behind him, Sherlock dropped his stick-sword behind a rock in the garden and hurried up the long path to the main entrance. Pomeroy House was handsome and well-looked after — not to mention imposing and grandiose — but Sherlock thought it looked gloomy rather than inviting. It had the air of having stood, quiet and foreboding, for a long time and having seen a great many terrible and tragic things. 

Sherlock tipped his head back to gaze at the large stained-glass window above the grand entrance, the late afternoon sun turning the reds and yellows of the picture into an optical inferno. He slipped inside. The large foyer was draughty and the house quiet, and he couldn't help but spend a moment wondering what sad things the place had seen. He knew, obviously, that at least one tragedy must have occurred here or his parents wouldn’t have been called in to help. 

He recalled Andy's words from earlier. The Holmes had never investigated a house where a child had died, and now he wondered if this was a deliberate rule agreed upon by them. The idea of a house haunted by a child both fascinated and saddened Sherlock and he wondered that, if such a line had been drawn, it was because of him. 

“Sherlock? Is that you?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

He walked through the house to the back, where it sounded as though her voice had come from, but he didn’t find her in the den that she and Father had turned into their workroom. Nor was she in the massive library of the house. Instead, she was sitting at the kitchen table. She greeted him with a smile, but it was a wrong sort and it made Sherlock stop in his tracks in the middle of the room.

“Why were you crying?” he asked, spinning in a slow circle, looking for something out of the ordinary, but the kitchen kept her secrets. There was nothing to give a clue as to why his mother was in the kitchen and not in the den, why she wasn’t poring over books in the library, or why she had clearly been in tears and was trying ineffectively to cover it up.

Her smile slipped under his scrutiny but she tightened it, rising from the table to pluck a shiny red apple from the wooden bowl on the worktop.

“Are you hungry? I think I’ll slice an apple for myself. Would you like to share some while you tell me about your day?”

For as long as Sherlock could remember, this was how his mother had coaxed him to eat. Whenever they moved, he lost his appetite, anxious about what awaited them in the next place and the next and the next after that. His mother, whether placating him with treats or serving everyday food, never offered him a choice or even an open-ended 'what would you like to eat?'. She simply told him what she was making or planning to eat and then asked if he would like to share some. 

His answer was almost always yes. He liked sitting across from her at the table, breaking off small bits from the same biscuit to make sure there weren't any chewy and unpleasant bits of fruit or chocolate that would sneak up on him. Sometimes his mother prepared a ploughman's platter just the way he liked with the cheese cut into cubes, and they would bump fingers and chuckle as they went in for the same slice of fruit. 

This time, though, he didn’t fall for her distraction techniques. They were too obvious, and he felt too upset still from his encounter with Andy to cheer himself up with food. He crossed his arms over his chest as she pulled a knife from the drawer, feeling his eyebrows pull in as he watched her carefully slice into the juicy fruit.

“No. Nothing happened. Only...” He shrugged his small shoulders and fought a sudden sob that threatened to break from his throat. 

He coughed to clear his voice. “Why were you crying, Mummy?” He asked again as he slid into the chair across from her and watched her slim fingers as they selected a slice of the apple. 

She toyed with it for a moment before biting off the end with a crisp snap, chewing thoughtfully with her lips pursed. 

As Sherlock waited for her reply, his stomach felt as though it was being tied into knots. 

Something was wrong. He could feel it. 

He glanced about the room again, as though the answers could have appeared suddenly, written in the walls or hidden in the mosaics above the stove. 

His mother finished chewing, but instead of answering his query, she merely shook her head. “Oh, just something I read earlier made me a bit sad.” She lifted her eyes to his and gave him another small smile. “Nothing for you to trouble yourself with.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to protest that he was plenty old enough to be troubled with whatever it was that had upset her — that he could handle whatever it was, but his train of thought was derailed by a shout from the corridor. 

As though synchronised, he and his mother rose from the table and turned toward the sound, just as his father came barrelling into the room. His eyes were shiny, his chest heaving from the short run from the den-turned-workroom to the kitchen. 

Sherlock watched as his father swept up Mummy in his arms and whispered in her ear. From where he still stood rooted to the spot next to the table, Sherlock couldn’t tell if it was an excited or concerned whisper. 

Mummy’s reaction confused him further. Her eyes grew wide, her eyebrows lifting nearly to her hairline. His mother, though gentle with him in a way that no one else ever was, was a tough woman. One thing he had learned in eight years as her son was that she was rarely ever surprised. She took every bit of Sherlock’s curiosity and every one of Mycroft's pompous attitudes with the same calm. She threw herself into their work, always wore the same satisfied, nearly smug expression when there was what she and her husband considered conclusive evidence of paranormal activity. Mummy had an advanced physics degree but had given up her — boring and pompous, as she often described it — career as a university lecturer when she’d met his father, opting instead for the thrill and field experience of their joint esoteric pursuit.

But, in the course of one afternoon, Emily Holmes had been moved to tears by something she’d read, and then shocked by whatever Father had just told her. Even more unusual than the crying or the shock, however, was the... well, shrieking. It was the best description Sherlock could come up with for the noise she was currently emitting, her hands gripping Father’s arm with a force that would surely leave a bruise.

“Y--you did? You finished it?”

“Father? Mummy?” Sherlock’s voice trembled with unease. He had never seen his parents behave this way. They were calm people. They valued academia and logic, even when faced with the unusual or supernatural. But now they turned toward him with matching expressions of... fear?

“Sherlock...” Mummy breathed. “You mustn’t...”

“Emily.” Father’s voice was sharp, but not unkind. “Don’t frighten the boy. He doesn’t know a whit about it, do you, m’ lad?”

The last part was delivered in Sherlock’s direction, a falsely cheery smile plastered on his father’s features. Mummy always called Father devilishly handsome when they were teasing one another. No one was teasing now; Sherlock understood that much. Something had happened. Something that was very secret, something that was worrying Father and throwing off Mummy’s carefully curated sense of calm. 

Sherlock nodded as calmly as he could, his eyes wide. “I won’t... I don’t...” He shook his head, frustrated with his inarticulate babbling. He swallowed and tried again. “What did you finish, Father? What did you do? Is it for the investigation? I want to help!”

His near-whingeing fell on deaf ears. His parents shook their heads in unison before they turned and hurried down the corridor to their workroom. Sherlock watched them go, a twisting of anxiety in his innards. 

He wished Mycroft were here. His older brother would have all the answers, would know how to talk to their parents, would know just the thing to do and what magic words to use to coax secrets from the tightly buttoned lips of adults. His parents had never kept secrets from Mycroft, not as far as Sherlock knew. 

He wrapped his arms around his middle, feeling alone and so terribly lonely as he sat back down at the table and stared at the apple slices which had begun to turn brown. He pushed them away and stood, wandering aimlessly up the stairs, ending up in his bedroom eventually. 

The upstairs was an L-shaped corridor lined with rooms. The largest room was for his parents. Sherlock never got to choose his own; his parents always had some reasoning or other why a certain one was the safest for him. Sherlock hardly cared which one was his since they'd always move and besides, all three bedrooms on this side of the corridor were the same. They all had a bed, a plain chest of drawers, and a solid wood desk. There weren’t even curtains on the windows. He stared at his suitcase and the box that held his most important belongings and sighed. He hadn’t unpacked anything yet except his favourite books; those were stacked neatly on the desk. There didn’t seem to be any point. He didn’t think he’d spend much time in here. With a weary sigh, he kicked off his shoes and wandered back out of the bedroom. Maybe he’d do some exploring. He hadn’t done much yet since they’d arrived. It had been a whirlwind of touring the village, shopping for groceries at the market and getting registered at school in the few days since they’d moved in. 

Maybe he could find out more about the family who had lived here and who still owned it. It was clear that they hadn’t been in the house in some time. Most of their personal possessions had been packed away and carted out before the Holmes' arrival, and while the house wasn’t empty — there was art on the walls, dishes in the kitchen, plenty of clean linens and towels in the bathroom — there weren’t any family photos displayed, no dusty knick-knacks lining the shelves, no forgotten socks left beneath the beds. It reminded Sherlock of houses turned into museums — places which lacked an atmosphere of being lived in.

Finding nothing of interest in his room, Sherlock roamed the other bedrooms listlessly, looking for something or nothing, he couldn’t be certain. He felt restless, unable to focus on any one thought. He came to the end of the corridor, but instead of descending the stairs, he turned and walked down the short end of the L. He’d not been down here yet except to use the loo. 

There was only one other door, at the end of the hall. Sherlock had assumed it was a closet of some sort. He went up to it now, his shoes rubbing against the thick woollen rug. 

Something made the hairs on his arms stand up. He rubbed at them and grabbed the door knob. Maybe there would be some books or something interesting in the closet. Some forgotten trinket that could occupy his mind, give him a clue to the former occupants. 

The door was locked. Frowning, Sherlock jiggled the door knob again, thinking that maybe it was just stuck. He’d seen his parents do that with things before and sometimes it worked. For good measure, he gave the door a little kick, but that just hurt his foot. Maybe his parents had the key. This mysterious locked door was the only interesting thing today, and it seemed important that he find out what was behind it. Maybe finding out what was behind it could convince his parents that he should be let in on what they were doing, that he was a good investigator.

His earlier upset faded, Sherlock skipped down the short corridor and down the steps, skidding to a stop at the den door. It was shut, too. Odd. His parents rarely shut doors when he was home, occasionally poking their heads out and checking on him as he played or did his schoolwork. 

He grabbed the doorknob, fantasising about all the wonderful things that were probably in the locked room upstairs. This door was locked, too! He knocked impatiently, so loud that he nearly missed his parents’ shouted reply over the sound of his little fist rapping on the thick wood. 

He paused, listening. “What?” he called out.

“Sorry, we’re a bit busy at the moment, son. We’ll be finished in a bit and then we’ll all have dinner together. Go on now.” 

Sherlock grit his teeth together and stood rooted to the spot. It was so unfair. His parents had dragged him here, to this lousy village without any friends. They’d sent Mycroft off to school where he got to fight with real swords. All Sherlock got was this crummy, dusty house that didn’t even have anything fun in it and the only thing he’d found of any interest at all had the door locked. 

Feeling like he was about to cry, he wandered outside. It was chilly and he was in his school clothes still, so goosebumps immediately rose on his skinny arms and legs. He scowled, dragging the toes of his shoes in the dirt that lined the footpath. He found his makeshift stick-sword and busied himself with finding a good hiding spot for it until his hands were red and numb from the cold.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock meets a new friend.

Mummy and Father emerged from the den a few hours later, once again smiling but only with their mouths as they prepared dinner together and sat with Sherlock to eat. Sherlock observed them carefully, the way he had been taught — like a scientist. He watched the looks they exchanged, listened to the pauses between the words they spoke, felt the palpable tension in every inhaled breath. His eyes narrowed with each forced expression they managed; they were nothing but _mouth_ smiles that never reached their eyes, never untied the knots in his stomach. He managed a few bites of dinner, tasting nothing, before he murmured that he was feeling unwell and excused himself to bed.

Did they know about the family who lived here? They must by now; they’d spent the whole last week shut up in the den together. But they’d been so strangely quiet about this case.

Sherlock huffed as he ascended the staircase. He used the loo and brushed his teeth, thinking all the while. They’d never concealed things from him, never protected him from anything like this. Something about this house was different but he didn’t know what it could be.

He didn’t like not knowing. Mycroft hated that, too, and would team up with him to find out what was going on. Sherlock wondered if he had friends at his boarding school. Mycroft didn't have to change schools all the time like Sherlock did, because he could live there.

Back in his room, he changed into his pyjamas and climbed into bed, collecting a book at random from the stack on the desk. But he couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t stop thinking about the locked room. Flopping onto his back, he stared at the ceiling, wondering about the family that used to live here, wondering if what the other kids at school had said was true — had a child died in this house?

He vowed to find out.

Suddenly energised by this decision, he got up and crept to the door, opening it as quietly as possible. From down below, he could still hear his parents’ voices and the occasional clink of silverware and porcelain as they cleaned up the kitchen from dinner.

Sherlock tiptoed back to his bed, leaving his door ajar. He flicked on the lamp and snuggled back under the covers, cracking open his book again.

It wasn’t much later when he heard soft footsteps. His eyelids felt heavy and his book had slid down onto his quilt, facedown. He closed it and tucked it under his pillow, waiting with his eyes closed. His door creaked open and he heard a breathy whisper, but he couldn’t make out the words over the sound of his own breathing. It sounded loud in his ears as he waited for them to approach the bed.

“Sherlock?” Mummy whispered again. “Are you feeling okay?”

He stayed perfectly still, trying to make his breaths perfectly deep and even. After a moment, she leaned in and kissed his forehead, letting her lips linger for just a moment, probably to check his temperature. Apparently satisfied, she tucked the quilt in around his shoulders more tightly and gave him a little pat before tiptoeing quietly out of the room.

Listening intently, Sherlock waited until the sounds from down the corridor quieted, and then he made himself count to three hundred before sliding out from under the covers. He shivered a bit as his bare feet made contact with the floor, but his curiosity was much too strong to bother with anything as tiresome as socks.

He crept to the door and stuck his head out, listening. It appeared his parents had retreated to bed, too. The house was quiet save for the creaks and groans of the old wood as it settled its bones for the night. Holding his breath, he slipped out into the corridor and tiptoed down the back staircase into the kitchen. Once he reached the large oak table there, he was able to breathe more easily, content that he had made it this far without alerting his parents. He’d never snuck out of bed before; the thrill of it was enough to propel him forward.

The door to the den was closed, but not locked this time, and Sherlock slipped in, closing it quietly behind himself. He flicked on the light and looked around. He’d only been in here a handful of times since they’d moved in and, with the exception of the collection of instruments used for their investigations, it wasn’t very interesting. The desk had been pushed to one side and a temporary table had been set up in the middle of the room. Sketches, notebooks, unfinished cups of tea and scribbled lists of numbers were scattered on every available surface.

Sherlock spotted a glint of metal on the desk and moved toward it, hoping it was a key for the room upstairs. His wishes came true when he pulled a whole keyring out from under a haphazard stack of papers. The ring was a shiny, solid metal and the keys were mostly the old-fashioned, skeleton kind, perfectly matching the age and ambiance of the house. He clasped the ring with both hands, holding it carefully so they wouldn’t jangle against one another, and made his way quietly back through the house to the mysterious locked door at the end of the upstairs corridor. He found the correct key on the third try, and with a metallic clank and a creak of the old hinges, he was in. It opened onto dusty wooden steps, bare except for a single bulb on a pull string. He kept the light off, hoping there would be another one once he got to the top of the stairs. Holding his breath, he ascended, wishing he’d thought to bring a torch.

The attic, once he made it up the fifteen or so steps, was smaller than expected and freezing cold. A round and very dirty window let in enough moonlight to create long shadows from the various misshapen objects along the walls.

“Don’t be a wimp,” he whispered harshly to himself. “Be brave like Davis.”

Hovering near the top step, he peered at the box closest to him. It was a plain cardboard box, black marker scrawl on top which read “Victor’s Room”. Peeling the tape off carefully, he looked inside and caught his breath.

The box was full nearly to the brim of books and puzzles and toys. There was a small cricket bat and a ship in a bottle, a book of fairy tales, and a plastic whistle. Sherlock was just about to start pulling things out when he heard a noise from down below. Terrified that his parents would catch him or even just discover that he wasn’t in his bed, he hastily closed the box and scrambled back downstairs. He heard the toilet flush and hurried back to his bed, diving under the covers just as he heard the door to the loo open and shut again.

He stared at the ceiling, unable to stop the smile from spreading across his face. He couldn’t wait for the morning and an opportunity to do more exploring. He had no idea how he’d ever fall asleep now that there was finally something exciting happening.

oOoOoOoOo

Hours later, a dip in the bed woke him, though he wasn’t sure when his eyelids had lost the battle with gravity and the darkness of his ceiling had turned into the blackness of sleep.

He tugged the blanket back over his shoulders, shivering as hazy thoughts slipped from his barely conscious mind.

“Mummy—?” He began, but the weight on the bed didn’t match the way his mother usually sat when he was ill, her hip close to his and her hand smoothing comfortingly over his curls.

Slowly, Sherlock peeled open his eyes but they were met with an empty bedroom. He furrowed his brow, kicking at the blanket tangled around his legs until he could sit up. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw it.

Just there, within the reach of his fingertips, perched at the foot of his bed, was a ghost.

Sherlock cocked his head to the side, studying the apparition. It was different than any of the other ghosts he’d seen. This ghost was small, and when it turned its head, he learned why.

It was a child.

A young boy, nearly the same age as Sherlock. His hair was messy, and he wore a patch over one eye. He was looking at the wall above Sherlock’s head, past him —or perhaps _through_ him.

“Hello,” Sherlock whispered, scooting back against his headboard, a sudden shyness taking over. None of the other ghosts he’d ever encountered had appeared in his bedroom — his parents studied the floor plans and histories of the houses they inhabited and tried to pick a sleeping space for him without any connections to the former occupant’s death. If nothing bad was supposed to have happened in this small bedroom, why would a ghost come here?

None of the other ones he'd ever seen had looked so real, so human, just casually sitting on the furniture. They had always lurked in corridors, slipped past as a fleeting shadow in a doorway, caught between two realms. Their behaviour was a strange mixture of trespassing and ownership.

The ghost glanced at him, startled. “You can see me?” it whispered. and the voice was that of a young boy.

None of the ones Sherlock had encountered before had ever said a word to him. Sometimes they gestured or opened their mouths, occasionally mouthing words in the silent eerie way of the spirits of the beyond, but he’d never had a conversation with any of them.

Sherlock nodded, fascinated. “Yeah. ‘Course I can. I can always see them. The ghosts, I mean. Even when the grownups can’t. But...” His brow furrowed. “You can talk? None of the other ones ever talked to me.”

Sherlock wondered briefly if he was dreaming, but then promptly decided he didn’t mind either way.

“Wow.” The boy’s eyes widened, but he smiled suddenly. Deep dimples appeared in his translucent cheeks. “’Course I can,” he echoed Sherlock. “Sorry I woke you. I didn’t know I could. I never have before.” He glanced around the bedroom and his eyes grew sad. “I like this room the best. Dunno why, really, but I come here at night sometimes, even though I don’t sleep.”

The boy's face broke into a bright smile and Sherlock felt himself mirror it. "You don't sleep?"

“I don’t _need_ to sleep, ever. It’s neat! I can explore all I want. And then, when I close my eyes, I just... I guess I just... stop for a while. Disappear, I think. Wanna see?”

Sherlock nodded and watched in rapt fascination as the boy’s eyes slid closed. It was exactly as he’d described: one moment he was there — translucent, but _there_ — and the next, he was just gone without so much as a flicker. Even the weight vanished from the end of the bed and Sherlock was alone once again. His mouth popped open in surprise, and he looked around the room, wondering if he’d simply been dreaming.

He no longer felt sleepy at all but thought that perhaps it was now all over and he should lie back down and close his eyes.

Then the boy re-appeared near his wardrobe.

“Cool!” Sherlock whispered and the boy grinned.

“I’m Victor.” He said. “Want to be my friend?”

oOoOoOoOo

For the next few days, Victor was Sherlock’s constant companion whenever he was at home. His appearances were not limited to night hours, which was unusual for a ghost — as Sherlock had learned in his eight years as one of the living. But, to both their dismay, they discovered the morning after their middle-of-night encounter that, while Victor was free to roam around the sizeable grounds of the house, he couldn’t go past the front gate. Each time he tried, he would simply disappear, reappearing with a frustrated scowl a few metres closer to the house. Sherlock tried not to let his disappointment show each morning as he trudged off to school, but disappointed he certainly was. He was distracted all day, wanting only to hurry home and play with his new friend. Suddenly, it was much easier to ignore the taunts of his classmates, to forget about their nasty words.

_I have a friend._

Sherlock smiled to himself at the thought.

oOoOoOoOo

A few days before Halloween, Sherlock had just settled under the covers in his bed. His eyelids were growing heavy, but his curiosity was stronger. There was a question which had been on his mind ever since they'd met, but he wasn't sure how one went about asking such a thing.

“How did you die?” He finally blurted out at Victor who was sitting in his usual spot at the end of his bed.

This had become their routine these last few nights: when their imaginary nautical battles had to be paused for the night at the request of Mummy or Father, Victor would disappear just long enough for the requisite tucking-in routine. Sherlock hadn’t told his parents yet about Victor; he’d tried to say it at dinner more than once, but they were so preoccupied with their work that they hadn’t replied with more than a ‘that’s nice, dear’ when he said he’d made a new friend. He didn't like keeping secrets from them any more than he appreciated their secrecy, but for now, it seemed as though Victor would be his secret to keep.

Every night, after dinner, Sherlock accepted his parents’ hugs and kisses as they tucked him in, returning their murmured sentiments and feigning sleepiness. As soon as the bedroom door clicked shut and the grownups’ footsteps faded down the steps, Victor would re-appear with a quiet giggle, his dimples dark craters in his pale face. He would sit cross-legged on the end of Sherlock’s bed and they would talk until Sherlock could no longer battle sleep. If the Holmes heard any of the whispered giggling coming from Sherlock’s room, they never mentioned it, most likely chalking it up to Sherlock’s always-vivid imagination.

Victor looked thoughtful. “Die? What do you mean, die? I’m a ghost! Ghosts can’t die!”

“Ohhh.” Sherlock wondered at the little boy’s logic and found himself curiously fascinated. Did he not remember being alive? How long had he been dead? Was it possible that he was _just_ a ghost? Or maybe ghosts didn't remember such things; perhaps it was easier for them that way?

Sherlock decided to play along for now. “Well, of course they can’t. I meant… for pretend. Was it a pirate’s battle?”

Victor’s eyes got wide. “How’d you know I like pirates?”

Sherlock grinned.

“You have an eye patch, here.” He gestured to Victor’s right eye and then demonstrated by covering his own eye with his hand, shrugging. “Wasn’t much of a deduction.”

“Wow. You’re really smart, Sherlock.”

Sherlock felt himself flush at the praise. “So, what was it? A sword? A cannon?”

Giggling, Victor pretended to think, tapping his chin with one finger. “Hmmm… once I had to walk the plank! But I swam and swam and swam! I didn’t drown!”

Sherlock joined in, pressing his hand against his mouth to muffle his own laughter. “But weren’t there sharks?”

“Oh yes! Lots of ‘em! I fought ‘em all of like this — _hiiiyah_! Take that! And that!” Victor punched the air spiritedly.

“And then you found land?”

“Nay! I found… another pirate ship! And I… took it! And all the other pirates said ‘oooh, Redbeard the Ghost Pirate is so brave! Let’s make him our captain!’ And they did!”

“Can I join your crew?”

“’Course you can.”

“Good. M’name’s Blackbeard.” Sherlock muttered with a smile as he slipped into sleep, the watchful eyes of his friend upon him. “Cap’n.”


	3. Chapter 3

The front door banged into the wall as Sherlock thundered through. He ran straight up the stairs to his bedroom, not pausing to even give a second’s thought as to where either of his parents might be. Once alone, he laid down on his bed, drawing the covers over his head to block out everything. His shoulders shuddered with finally-released sobs, his throat raw from unshed tears.

After a few moments, Sherlock felt a weight on the end of his bed. He curled tighter in on himself, not wanting to explain why he was so upset to anyone, not even his new best friend.

“Sherlock?” The voice was tight with worry. The weight on the bed shifted and soon, Sherlock felt the lightest pressure on his back.

“Are you okay?” Victor asked again.

Sherlock shook his head vigorously, the bed shaking with the movement, the tears spilling over. After a moment, he felt, rather than heard Victor’s exhalation.

“Was it a bully?”

“Four.”

“Are you bleeding? Did they take your sword?”

Sherlock smiled into his pillow, despite the tears still drying on his cheeks and the ache in his stomach where he’d been punched. His palms stung from scraping them on the gravel when he fell. He shook his head. “It’s safe. I leave it in a special hiding place in the mornings.”

The bed shifted again, rolling Sherlock toward the edge as it dipped. He opened his eyes and nearly laughed when he saw Victor standing on the bed, his arms folded and his face scrunched up in seriousness.

“Well, Blackbeard. I think there’s only one thing we can do. Do you know what it is?”

Sherlock swiped at his eyes and sniffled.

“Throw them in the Brig?”

Victor grinned momentarily, but rearranged his face quickly back into his pirate scowl. “Nooo! For crimes such as these, I say they walk the plank! Off to Davy Jones’ locker with ‘em! Go get your sword, we’ll rec—recon— meet in the co-Captain’s quarters!” Victor let out a whoop, brandishing his imaginary sword over his head and dashing off.

Sherlock sat up. He felt better. Why should he care what some dumb boys at school thought? Why should he give a whit if they were upset that Sherlock had got the highest marks on the maths quiz? He didn't cheat, as he'd been accused. He just... knew the answers. Sherlock shrugged mentally. Maybe they were jealous. It was a word his mother had used before, but he still wasn't sure he understood what it meant. He didn't think he'd ever wanted what other people had. Except maybe a friend. But he had one of those now. And none of those boys had a friend like Victor, of that he was certain. Sherlock sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He’d have to set the record straight with Victor though; real pirates never walked the plank. It would be a silly way to get rid of a crewmate when you could just toss them overboard.

With a small smile, Sherlock dashed off down the hall after his friend. As he ran down the steps and toward the front door, he glanced in the direction of the den. The door was shut again. Ah, well. He made quick work of collecting his sword-stick from the front gate, taking special care to rearrange the ivy so that no one would notice its hiding place. He tapped the wrought iron for good luck — _tap-tap-tappitty-tap_ — before he ran around the side of the house to the secret cellar entrance. Victor was waiting for him there, a broad smile on his face. The cellar had become their favourite playing spot;its stone walls muffled their shouts and shrieks so as not to disturb Sherlock’s parents while they were working, or to clue them into the fact that Sherlock had found an extraordinary playmate. Plus, it was cold and damp and could easily be transformed into a pirate ship in the middle of the Atlantic with just a touch of the imagination.

Sherlock waved his sword. “Aye, Redbeard! Are our prisoners ready to meet their fate?”

“They’re putting up quite the fight! Hurry, Blackbeard, help me fight them!”

Their shrieks and giggles blended together as they fought their imaginary prisoners all the way down the corridor. Their fierce battle ended in victory just before the doorbell chimed from upstairs. Sherlock tipped his head to listen, pausing in his sword fight with Victor and pulling an exaggerated face.

They never got visitors. Most of the village stayed far away from the new family living in the weird haunted house, regardless of which village that particular haunted house was located, and that suited Sherlock just fine. He couldn’t hear anything, so he crept up the cold stairs and crouched near the top, pushing open the door until he could see into the kitchen and, if he shifted onto his belly, halfway down the corridor. The bell rang again, louder and longer. From down the corridor, Sherlock saw the door of the den open and his mother’s feet as she hurried out.

“Oh!” Mummy exclaimed, followed by the creak of the front door as it opened to accommodate their visitor. “What a lovely surprise. Mister and Missus Trevor, oh sure, yes, well come in, won’t you? I’ll put the kettle on.” She was out of breath, though Sherlock wasn’t sure why, since the den was a short distance from the front door. “Not that you exactly need to be invited. It is your house, after all. But is there something I can—”

Another voice interrupted hers. It was deep and scratchy and a bit muffled. Two pairs of feet joined his mother’s. They paused near the main staircase.

“Oh, we can’t stay long. We wouldn’t want to overstep. We merely want to check in on the progress, since it’s been rather a few weeks. Thought we’d perhaps have heard something by now…”

Mummy laughed, but it wasn’t her usual kind. It didn’t make Sherlock feel warm and safe like it did when she was tickling him or when Father was teasing her. This laugh felt sharp, uncomfortable. Sherlock stiffened, shifting around on the step to try and see her face.

“Sherlock!” Victor called from one of the cellar rooms. “Come and play!”

Sherlock ignored him, straining to hear more of the adults’ conversation.

Mummy’s voice was rising in pitch, unnaturally friendly, “—in the contract, our methods generally take on average three to four months, and we’ve scarcely been here for one. We want to make sure that everyone has the best experience and that the utmost respect—”

“—yes, yes. All that, I remember.” Gruff-voice cut in. “Respect for the dead. We thought perhaps we could convince you to—”

“Eugene! Louise! What an er, that is…. what a surprise!”

This voice Sherlock recognised as his father’s, whose brown brogues now came into view, shuffling closer to the other two. “Thought I heard something about tea. I know I’d love some. Please, do come in. Emily, can I give you a hand?”

Mummy answered, but it was too quiet for Sherlock to hear.

“You three go on ahead. I’m going to just pop into the loo first, if you don’t mind,” A lady’s voice said. “Bit of a drive from Knoxcombe. You know how it is.”

“Sherlock!” Victor’s head poked out of the first room at the bottom of the stairs. “Come help me! I’ve nearly got them!”

Bored with the adults’ conversation, and certainly not wishing to stop playing to go for tea, Sherlock jumped down the stairs and chased Victor around a corner into a part of the cellar he’d never explored before.

“This way, Blackbeard! We can put them in here until it’s time for them to walk the plank! I think it should be… tomorrow.” Victor frowned, tugging on the handle of a door. The walls of this part of the cellar were even more damp and the air stale, and Sherlock shivered at the chill. It felt like they were ten kilometres below the ground. It was silent and dim, the only light coming from a single bulb on the wall, and no sound from the rest of the house could be heard.

“It’s stuck.” Victor was still frowning, twisting the handle this way and that. “Or locked? I didn’t even know it could lock. There’s just apples and stuff in here. To keep them cold. Sometimes there’s even an ice lolly!”

Sherlock raised his eyebrows at that. He did love ice lollies, at least some flavours. He tried the door too. The handle barely even moved. “I think it’s locked. Weird!” His eyebrows knit together, but only momentarily until he ran back to their favourite room — the one with the window and the wiggly stones. An old mattress was their ship deck, a few wobbly chairs their galley. Sometimes they hid things behind the stones — pretty pebbles and smooth pieces of glass they found outside.

“C’mon, Redbeard, let’s go hide some more gold! We don’t want our prisoners to find it!”

oOoOoOoOo

When Sherlock returned home from school the next day, Victor was nowhere to be found.

Mummy must’ve heard Sherlock’s feet running zigzags on the stairs and in the corridors, for she poked her head out of the den to shush him.

“But Mummy! I can’t find Victor!”

The words tumbled out of him and seemed to crash right into Mummy. She sucked in a breath and stared, her face nearly as white as Victor himself. “What did you say, Sherlock?” she whispered.

“Victor. He’s the ghost that lives here. I’ve been trying to tell you and Father all about him. He loves pirates, too, and he has a patch over one eye and he knows how to fight properly with a sword, and knows the importance of good navigation in order to avoid the Bermuda Triangle, and his pirate name is Redbeard. I’m Blackbeard.” Sherlock puffed out his small chest and tried to smile, but Mummy didn’t look pleased with any of this information. “He’s my friend, Mummy. He plays with me and doesn’t call me names or push me down or tease me for my big vocabulary or call me a freak.”

Sherlock’s voice wobbled on the last word which seemed to break the spell cast over Mummy. She came to him, then, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly. He swallowed around the sting in his throat and breathed. She smelled good, like old books and tea and comfort and the closest thing to _home_ he'd known in his short life.

“Do you know what happened to him, Mummy? Have you found his story?” He looked up at her and she gave him a small, sad smile.

“Yes, I do.”

“He died.”

“Yes.”

“But he doesn’t know.”

Mummy opened her mouth, maybe to ask what he meant — what it was that Victor didn’t know — but Father came out of the den just then, his hair a bit dishevelled as though he’d been running his hands through it. He did that sometimes when he was thinking hard.

He looked a bit startled to see Sherlock and glanced at his wristwatch. “That time already? My goodness, the days just keep disappearing.” He murmured, before patting Sherlock on the shoulder. “Alright, Sherlock? How was school today?”

“Fine. One boy lost his spelling homework. The teacher said he could turn it in tomorrow. I don’t think he ever did it. I think he was lying.”

Father was nodding as Sherlock spoke, but Sherlock could tell he wasn’t really listening.

“Sherlock,” he said, just as Sherlock was about to ask him if he knew about Victor, too. “Speaking of missing things, have you seen a notebook lying about? It’s brown, about this big, full of scribbled notes that probably can’t be read by anyone but me? You know the one? Mummy has one that looks just the same. Only we can’t find mine today and it’s driving me barmy.”

Sherlock pursed his lips. He knew the notebook Father was talking about; he carried it with him around the house so that he could make important notes whenever they occurred to him. He lost it at least once a week and they usually turned it into a game, retracing Father’s steps until they found it balanced precariously atop a jar in the refrigerator or wedged between his shoes in his wardrobe. Sherlock almost always was the one to find it. He remembered seeing it the night he’d discovered the keys in the den, but he hadn’t touched it.

“I’m sure it’ll turn up, Joseph. In the meantime, perhaps you could straighten up our erm… _work_ from today. We wouldn’t want any of it to—"

The doorbell rang, interrupting Mummy before she could finish her sentence. She gave Sherlock a hug, her eyes warm and kind. “That’s Victor’s parents. They want us to try and talk to him tonight. Would you like to help us, Sherlock?”

He nodded enthusiastically, his curls bobbing. “Yes, I would! I’ll go see if I can find him. He might be playing hide-and-seek.”

He dashed off toward the cellar doors as his mother went to greet their guests and his father disappeared back into the den.

oOoOoOoOo

“Mister and—”

“Louise, please. And Eugene. No need for formalities. We’re practically family, now.”

Sherlock squirmed in his seat, anticipation making him wiggly. It seemed as though the Trevors had been there for hours already, settling in at the large kitchen table with them for dinner, asking questions about Mummy and Father’s work, drinking wine that they’d brought. Though Mummy and Father had declined the wine, they had thanked their guests for bringing it, explaining that they never drank alcohol while working.

Sherlock had helped Father gather the supplies that they would need tonight and had helped him look once more for his notebook. He’d had a quick glance around the cellar for Victor but hadn’t spotted him. He’d shrugged, not too bothered. Sometimes Victor got distracted. He wondered where Victor went when he wasn't visible. He made a mental note to ask him later. Maybe he should get a notebook like Father's to write down these thoughts so he wouldn't forget them. 

Once dinner plates were removed and their small group had shuffled off to the library, Mummy cleared her throat. “We will do our best to communicate with your son tonight, and to allow him a pleasant environment to communicate with us. This is our first attempt at communication with him, so we cannot guarantee success, though we do have a pretty good record. The most important thing is that Victor’s spirit feels welcome in this space.

Please remove your shoes and any bulky garments and make yourself comfortable on the cushions here on the floor. Once you are settled, Joseph will turn off the lights and I will light these candles. We have some equipment set up around the perimeter of the room, devices to capture electromagnetic sound waves, and the like, to use for furthering our research. We’d ask you to please not disrupt any of the equipment — in fact, pay it no mind at all.”

“Yes, yes, on with it,” Mrs Trevor cut in impatiently.

Father turned off the lights and, for a moment, the entire room was plunged into a darkness so black that it seemed to settle around them like a heavy blanket. Father had drawn shut the thick curtains covering the windows of the library and the oak door sealed off any light coming in from the rest of the house. Sherlock shivered a bit.

Mummy lit the three candles in the centre of the room and disappeared into the shadows behind Sherlock’s chair to turn on the sensors and other monitors. Sherlock glanced around, smiling a little at the uncomfortable faces Victor’s parents were making already. He wondered if Victor was here — if he’d been listening in on the conversation from somewhere out of sight.

“Victor,” Mummy began in a soft and gentle voice. “Little Victor Trevor. Your spirit was taken far too early, at far too young an age. Tonight, we are gathered here for you, to honour you, to remember you, to cherish you. With me in this room are two very special people that miss you dearly and would love another chance to speak with you.”

The room held its breath. In the centre of their circle, the candles flickered. Sherlock heard someone gasp softly.

“Victor?” Mrs Trevor whispered.

Sherlock saw Mummy glance at the closest sensor. It was perfectly still and quiet. No supernatural activity.

“Not yet, I don’t think. But we’ll keep trying. Perhaps you might like—” Father started.

“Victor! It’s your _mummy_ , Vic! Show us where you’ve been hiding all this time, darling! We miss you terribly.” Mrs Trevor’s head was swivelling from left to right, her eyes wide open. She reminded Sherlock of an owl as she sought a sign, any sign, of her son.

From the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw a pale shape appear. He smiled to himself, looking down at his lap to hide it. _Good. Victor is here now. He’ll get to talk to his parents._

When Sherlock looked up, feeling relaxed now that his friend was here, Mummy caught his eye. She raised her eyebrows and he gave a small nod, shifting his eyes to look at Victor in the corner. Victor gave him a thumbs up and a cheeky grin. Somewhere behind Mummy, one of the machines turned on with a soft electronic glow.

“What was that?”

“Now, it really does work best if we all remain quiet—” Father started to say.

Mrs Trevor cut him off, pointing at Sherlock first and then Mummy with one trembling finger. “They made a face at each other! I saw it! Ohh, if this is all just some hoax, I swear…”

Mummy looked startled. “A hoax? No, it’s not a hoax. Please, Mrs Tr— _Louise_ , it really is very important that we all exude an air of calm and peacefulness while we make our attempts.” She glanced at the sensor again. It was lighting up now, steady flashes of light.

“What’s that? What’s that flashing mean?” Mr Trevor asked.

“Please, if we could all find our quiet space once again and give our spirit a peaceful—"

_“Mum! Dad! I’m right here! Stop yelling at them!”_

“The other one is lighting up too. What’s that mean? Does that mean he’s here? Can he hear us? Victor? Vicky!”

_“Yes Mum! Hullo! Hullo Dad!”_

“I think it would be best if Emily remained the only one speaking for the time being. We want to guide him to communication on his own time, not scare him off.” Father explained patiently.

 _“I’m trying to talk! Can’t anyone hear me?”_ Victor pleaded.

“I can.”

All four adult heads swivelled in Sherlock’s direction. He bit his lip, realising he’d answered Victor out loud.

“What did he say?”

“What did the boy say?”

“Sherlock? Can you see him right now?”

“Yes,” Sherlock answered Mummy honestly. “And hear him. He’s saying hello. Well, trying to, but you're all shouting and nobody's really listening.”

“ _Victor!”_ Victor’s mum half-screamed, half-sobbed. “Oh, Vicky! Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”

_“I told you, I’m right here!”_

“He’s right there.” Sherlock pointed at Victor, who gave a little half wave, but he was starting to look upset. Behind Sherlock, another one of the machines whirred to life, clicking as it took measurements of the activity in the room.

Mrs Trevor sniffed loudly, dabbing at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief she’d materialised from somewhere. Her head swivelled again. “It’s okay, Vicky. We’ll fix it.”

_“Ugh. Stop calling me Vicky. I hate that. It's a girl's name!”_

“Erm… well, actually, we can’t—” Sherlock’s mum started, looking a bit alarmed.

“It’s time to tell them, Louise.”

_“Tell who? Tell them what? Sherlock! What is my dad talking about?”_

“Tell us what? We really should get back to the… This really isn’t the way we usually do this…”

Mrs Trevor sniffed again, but when she spoke, her voice was perfectly calm and collected. “We know about the serum.”

Sherlock could only watch as all the blood seemed to drain from his mother’s face. She opened her mouth, but closed it again without making any sound, looking at Father. Father looked equally surprised, though not nearly as pale. He coughed, once, and then straightened, his eyes fixed on Mr Trevor.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I can confirm that _you_ don’t know anything about what you think it is you think you know.”

 _“I don’t know what anyone is talking about, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is all that interested in talking TO me anymore, are they?”_ Victor looked disappointed.

“We know all about it. The only reason we haven’t turned you in to the authorities is that we are willing to strike a deal.”

“A deal?! You can’t be serious. We aren’t interested in any—”

_Crash!_

Sherlock jumped as the brass lamp in the corner tipped over, narrowly missing the candles in the centre of the floor.

“My God! What was— was that Victor?? Or was that another one of your gimmicks?” Mrs Trevor demanded.

Father rubbed at his eyes, looking at Mummy.

“No gimmicks. I don’t know what… maybe there’s a draught from somewhere… old houses can sometimes…” Mummy trailed off as she stood to right the lamp.

 _“I’m!” Thump._ A book hit the floor this time, yanked from the bookshelf above Mrs Trevor’s head. “ _Not!”_ Another book. _“A gimmick!”_

Mrs Trevor leapt to her feet, screaming. “Give us the serum so we can bring our dead son back or we’ll report you for crimes of immorality!”

Father exhaled sharply. Mummy had her lips pressed together so hard they were turning white.

A whoosh of cold air swept through the room then, extinguishing two of the candles. Sherlock watched with wide eyes as Victor flew up to the ceiling, his face a mask of rage and hurt.

_“Dead son?! I’m dead?!”_

Victor flew straight at the wall behind Sherlock and disappeared. Chaos erupted. Mrs Trevor dissolved into tears. Mr Trevor lunged across the circle and took a swing at Father.

Sherlock spun on his heel and ran from the room, letting the door slam heavy behind him, cutting off the adults' yelling. He charged up the stairs, calling Victor’s name, his feet pounding on the wooden floors as he stuck his head into each room. Victor wasn’t in any of them. He ran down the back staircase into the kitchen and when a quick glance confirmed that Victor wasn’t in there, either — he rarely ever occupied any of the common family spaces— Sherlock turned toward the stairs to the cellar. It seemed likely that Victor may have gone to their secret pirate hiding place.

From down the corridor behind him, he heard a door open and the chaotic confusion of several voices rising over one another. Scared that they were coming after him, Sherlock yanked open the door and clattered down the stairs, making sure to close the door behind him. His chest was heaving and no matter how wide he opened his eyes, they refused to adjust to the inky black. His friend was nowhere to be seen.

“Victor!” He whispered harshly, swallowing hard as he felt the bottom stair with his socked feet. He wouldn’t allow himself to cry, not yet. He needed to think. He wondered briefly if he should have stayed upstairs to hear what was happening with his parents and the Trevors, but it seemed more important to go after his friend.

“Yes. I’m here.” Victor appeared next to his elbow, seeming to glow faintly in the dark. His arms were wrapped around his middle and he looked miserable.

“Are you—” Sherlock had meant to ask if Victor was okay, but he didn’t think anyone would be okay to learn that they had once been a real, living person, and had died. But he didn’t have long to think of another question to ask because just then, the door to the cellar was flung open. It hit the wall with a crash and Father’s voice could be heard, arguing loudly with Mr Trevor. Sherlock ducked around the corner with Victor right beside him. The cold of the floor seeped through his thin trousers and he shivered.

“No! You cannot have it. It’s not safe, it’s not been tested! Who knows what could happen, and I won’t let —” Father’s voice was cut off by a yell, sounding like it came from the deepest part of him, a part that sounded truly terrified in a way his smart, kind, funny father never was. There was a crash, a few loud thumps, a hissed curse and the slam of the cellar door and then… nothing.

Sherlock listened hard, but there was only silence. He looked at Victor, who was looking back at him with the same frightened expression he imagined was on his own face.

“Was that…” But Victor either couldn’t or wouldn’t finish his thought.

Sherlock crept forward, needing to know, but not wanting to see, what had just happened to make his father make such an awful sound.

Golden light from the kitchen spilled down the stairs, illuminating a heap of dark material. For a moment, Sherlock was puzzled; it looked just like when Mummy collected all the bedding to be washed. But then the light reflected off of a wet puddle, and the heap became Father’s checked shirt and trousers, his arms splayed unnaturally around him, his body twisted. The puddle surrounded Father’s head, growing steadily larger.

Blood. It was dark, pooling and disappearing into the shadows, seeping into the stone floor with little regard for the vibrant life it had once supported.

Sherlock crept closer, needing to know for sure. His father’s eyes were open, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. Sherlock pressed both of his hands over his mouth. He did not scream. He did not cry. He pulled in a very deep breath and turned his head so he didn’t have to look anymore.

The cellar was silent and cold.

Sherlock shivered again, gooseflesh standing up all over his body.

From behind him, he heard Victor’s voice, hushed and careful, moving toward him.

“Sherlock? Is he…?”

But Sherlock wasn’t listening. His eyes had settled on another reflected glint, something small and shiny near his father’s left hand. He knelt, being careful not to look at his father’s face and stretched his hand out to retrieve it. It was smooth and cold in his hand and he closed his fingers around it tightly, walking in a trance toward their secret pirate room.

“What is it?” Victor’s voice was hushed, pointing with one finger at Sherlock’s hand. 

Sherlock peeled open his fingers, huddling against the tiny window to try and absorb as much light as possible. It was a tiny glass bottle with a white handwritten label stuck to the side. Sherlock squinted, but he couldn’t make out his father’s scrawl in the dark. He tipped it and watched the liquid swirl.

“The serum.”

Sherlock nodded.

“What’s it for?”

Sherlock shrugged, slumping to the floor and letting the bottle roll out of his fingers. They felt strange. Numb, cold, like they weren’t attached to his body any more.

“Should we hide it with our gold?”

Sherlock lifted his eyes, grateful for his friend even if he didn’t have to words to tell him so. Instead, he simply nodded, letting his eyes close and leaning against the old mattress. He was so tired. The rocks scraped as Victor pulled them out, rearranging the contents until he could fit in the tiny bottle.

oOoOoOoOo

“Sherlock! Sherlock, wake up! Get up, we have to get out of here. I smell smoke. Something’s on fire, Sherlock, come on! Go! Go!”

oOoOoOoOo

Sherlock didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember crawling out of the cellar doors into the dark garden, didn’t remember walking through the grass or sitting down, but his back was pressed against the bark of a tree now and the seat of his trousers was wet with dew. He closed his eyes tightly but the tears still came.


	4. Chapter 4

“They’ll turn, Sherlock. They always do. And they’ll turn on you.”

Sherlock made a noise, not of agreement, not exactly. The sound was made to merely acknowledge that John was speaking; it was not a sign of committing to a response.

John stared at him for a moment, unexplained anxiety gnawing at his gut. Sherlock seemed completely unfazed, as usual. He was on the sofa, dressing gown spilling around him in a puddle of blue, as though he’d knocked over a paint can and then laid in it. His feet were bare, long toes curling and uncurling against the fabric of the arm of the sofa. The hems of his pyjamas were twisted around his ankles, the tops of his feet disappearing into soft-looking, worn green flannel. 

“—why you care so much, anyway.”

John realised Sherlock was speaking and that he had, oddly, been staring at the other man’s feet for longer than was probably considered decent while he tried to make sense of the unease he was feeling over the sudden rise in popularity his flatmate had attracted with their most recent cases.

John snapped the newspaper to cover his face and sighed. “You can’t claim to be a private detective now, not with your name and face splashed all over the front page of the—”

“Hardly the front page. It’s the crime section. That’s at least four sections deep. You always have to hunt for it and usually get distracted on the way by the sports scores, so it’s at least—”

“The front page _of the crime section_ is hardly under the radar, though is it? I’m just saying you should be more careful, that’s all. Sherlock… you’ve become a household name. They know your face. You’re practically offering yourself up as bait.”

“Mm-hmm. Maybe I am. What of it?”

“Fine. _Fine_. If you want to taunt the criminal classes out of hiding by dangling your— your — face and your _massive_ … intellect, then far be it for me to interfere. Be bait, then.”

With that, John pushed himself out of his chair and went to the kitchen. Once there, he ran out of steam while opening the fridge and staring into it. Why was he so worked up? He had no idea save for the fact that the sight of Sherlock in the paper felt wrong, exploitative. It had startled John to open up the paper that morning and have his flatmate’s face staring back at him. He knew it wasn’t the first time Sherlock had been mentioned in relation to a case, and the kidnapping he’d recently solved had been a big headliner. He deserved the attention — not that he wanted it. He never even wanted to take credit for solving them. He just liked the game.

“You’re upset. Why?” Sherlock’s voice came from the doorway.

John shut the fridge door, shaking his head and heading for the stairs.

“I’m not. I’m… not. I’m… we’re out of milk. I’ll be back. Find a new case; your moping about is driving me barmy.”

He slammed out of the front door, his fist clenching.

oOoOoOoOo

“Sherlock? Could you maybe give me a hand… Oh, you’ve moved far, I see.”

John huffed through into the kitchen, rolling his eyes at his flatmate’s back, still immobile on the sofa. He dropped the shopping on the kitchen floor, slamming things around louder than entirely necessary as he put everything away. His ire and anxiety had settled while at the store, and he’d taken his time, selecting the produce carefully, comparing different brands for the best value, choosing a new kind of breakfast cereal to try. Sherlock would find something wrong with it, he was certain — he always did.

The tension had mounted again as John had ascended the stairs. Seeing his flatmate still in the same position on the sofa — doubtless still despondent over their lack of interesting cases since the kidnapping thing ended nearly a week ago — had set his blood to boiling again.

Sherlock’s voice drifted in from the sitting room, but it was muffled.

“What?” John demanded as he shut the fridge with his foot, crumpling up the shopping bags.

He never got to hear the answer because the doorbell rang. It was a single, short polite buzz.

John stuck his head out of the kitchen and scowled at Sherlock’s back, which showed absolutely no signs of its owner having heard the bell.

"I'll just get that then, shall I?" 

The scowl was still stuck on John's face when he answered the door to find an older couple — late sixties, if he had to guess — on the doorstep.

“Mister Holmes?” The woman asked with a puzzled look. “Thought you’d be taller. Only, you look taller in your photographs. And more… broody.”

The gentleman nodded. He was nearer to seventy, if John had to guess, though the grizzled look he had about him made John wonder if he was actually younger but worn heavy by a challenging life.

When the man spoke, his voice was deeper than John had expected. It was gruff and raspy, sounding like he'd smoked every day since birth. "We were hoping to speak with Mister Holmes directly. Is he available?" 

John knew Sherlock would hate it if he let someone into the flat unannounced. He liked to be properly dressed to greet clients: wanted to adorn his battle armour properly, arrange himself in a way that made him seem simultaneously arrogant and unaffected. 

John was still feeling the sting of his annoyance earlier, so he motioned the couple into the foyer and directed them to hang up their wet coats on the hooks. He led the way up the steps into the flat and stopped short. 

Sherlock was lounging carelessly in his chair, one long leg hooked over the armrest, a bored look on his face. He was impeccably dressed in one of his bespoke suits and even his shoes were perfectly tied. Somehow, he had even quick-tamed the ratty nest of curls his hair had become in these last few days of lounging on the sofa like a slowly spreading stain. 

John gaped for only a moment, not missing Sherlock's smirk, before sidestepping and allowing their new clients to proceed into the sitting room.

Sherlock nodded grandly to the chairs he had clearly arranged, facing their armchairs. 

"New clients for you, Mister Holmes." John said with only a bit of sarcasm, gesturing to the couple as they took their seats. "I'll put on the kettle while you all get acquainted." 

He ducked into the kitchen, keeping one ear open. He was curious, of course, even if a bit stung that they apparently seemed to know Sherlock but had never heard of him. Not big fans of the blog, then. 

"Miste— _Sherlock_. It's so good to see you." 

John glanced in the sitting room to see Sherlock's perplexed face for just a moment before he recovered. 

"I'm... sorry? Have we met? I meet so many people." He put on his false polite voice, and the charming — albeit a bit creepy — smile that accompanied it. 

"Oh! Well, um. No, not officially. Not... like this. I'm... that is, my husband and I are both big fans of yours. And it's so nice to finally meet you." 

"Of course. Now tell me, what can I do for you two? You've travelled a long way to see me, that much is clear. It must be for something important." 

There was a moment of silence before the man began speaking again which John assumed was filled with an exchanged glance between the couple.

John spooned sugar into Sherlock’s tea as quietly as possible.

"Our names are... well, that's unimportant, really. What's really important is the reason we came here today. You see, we've been having these... encounters. Noises and such. Odd happenings. Items missing, that sort of thing. Frightening things. There's no one else that ever goes in the house, and it's been vacant for many years while we were— while we were away. It's rumoured to be uh... haunted. We never really believed it, until... well we've only just moved back in. And last night, we discovered that something very important was missing."

"Which is what? Be precise."

"Well... I'd... I'd rather not say. It's a bit... personal. But that's why it's so strange. It wouldn't be of any interest to anyone else, really. It's more of a... sentimental thing. But someone clearly knows where it was kept or they wouldn't be—"

Sherlock interrupted. "And when was the first occurrence of these... _things_?" John could imagine his eye roll at the imprecise language.

"Shortly after we moved back in. Last week, I'd say." 

"Mmm." The hum was secretive; John couldn't tell how sceptical Sherlock was of the couple's story. It wasn't the first ghost story told in this sitting room by clients. Sherlock tended to send such prospective clients on their merry way after solving their cases on the spot with a few questions or dismissing the whole thing as histrionics brought on by superstition.

John carried the tea tray to the sitting room, nearly snickering at the change in Sherlock's demeanour. Where he had originally looked interested, however mildly, when they'd entered the sitting room, now he just looked bored.

"And you think it's a ghost." It wasn't a question.

"Well... we're not sure. I know how that sounds but really, we just want—"

"Ghosts are a fabrication of the unimaginative, self-inserting themselves into a fiction in which their meaningless lives suddenly have purpose beyond the realm of this world."

"But Mister Holmes, it’s a very important… artefact we've lost. Not of any value to anyone else. Won't you help?" The woman was wringing her hands, her ash-blonde hair escaping its low ponytail in damp-looking wisps.

Sherlock looked to be studying her: his eyebrows were drawn together so that a crease formed above the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he clapped his hands and stood, making his way briskly to the door. "I am a consulting detective. I do not deal in the occult. Perhaps you need an exorcist. Or a..." Sherlock paused for the briefest moment, and a strange flicker passed over his features, but he recovered quickly, blinking once. "Or a ghost hunter. I'm sure Google will be very helpful with that. My assistant will see you out. Good afternoon."

Neither of the couple moved for a moment, blinking and staring at Sherlock like he'd just said something shocking. Finally, the gentleman stood, helping the woman to her feet. He bent to retrieve her handbag and then ushered her to the door. He turned as though about to say something, but seemed to change his mind and followed his wife down the stairs without another word.

After a moment, John heard the front door open and close. "What's that all about, then? We're turning down clients? Not like we've anything better on at the moment, is it?"

"Not interested."

"Sounded pretty interesting to me. Missing artefact, old house, plenty of mystery and intrigue and besides—"

Sherlock gave him a glare. "I'm used to mystery on _one_ end, not both. I'm not interested in solving mysteries for people who won't even bother to tell me what it is I'm trying to solve."

"Yes, but—"

"Nope." Sherlock popped the p and went back to the sofa, flouncing onto the cushions with his face pressed against the back.

oOoOoOoOo

“My phone, John.”

“What about your phone? If you could manage to speak in complete sentences, preferably not into the backrest of the sofa, I’d probably be able to understand you a lot better.”

John was sat in his chair, drumming his fingers against the armrests. Sherlock’s phone was on the table next to his elbow and, although John’s curiosity was piqued, stubbornness made him stay motionless until Sherlock deigned to tell him what was so bloody important. John had been attempting to read after cleaning up their dinner dishes, his annoyance at Sherlock simmering just under the surface the whole day. Sherlock had disappeared into the bedroom for a while in the early afternoon, only emerging when John had announced that he was going to make dinner. He had boiled some pasta to be had with pesto while Sherlock had sat at the table in the sitting room, tapping away on his laptop and occasionally muttering things to himself. After a minimal amount of dinner, he had resumed his sofa hibernation, not uttering a word until this directive. 

“The _case_ , John.” Sherlock pushed himself to sitting, ruffling his hair with both hands. He waved his hand in the direction of the table. “See for yourself. I’m going to pack. We’ll leave at 19:00.”

“Ninete— Sherlock, that’s in forty-five minutes! I’m not going bloody anywhere in forty-five minutes. I've just spent thirty quid today at the store buying stuff for us to make dinner this week. We cannot survive on takeaway alone. Oi! Where are you going?”

“To pack. Read the email. Forty-five minutes. Tick tock, John.”

With a frustrated grunt, John stood and snatched the mobile from the table, muttering to himself as he unlocked it with Sherlock's passcode. The email in question was still open on the screen.

The subject line was _'Knew you couldn't resist’_. The message had come from an email address that was just a series of numbers. Burner account, then. The only text in the body of the email was an address. It was signed with the sender's initials. 

“E.T.? Think we should bring some Reese’s pieces as a peace offering?” John joked.

Sherlock stuck his head out from the bedroom, a puzzled look on his face. "What? Some sort of pop culture reference? I don't get it." 

John frowned at the email again. "Wait. ‘ _Knew you couldn’t resist’_? This isn't the couple from earlier today, are they? After being so rude, you're taking their case anyway?" 

“Daylight’s fading, John! Don't forget your toothbrush! The last time we had a case where we had to stay over, your morning breath—" 

"Oh, shut up." 

With another eye roll for good measure aimed in his mad flatmate's direction, John stomped upstairs and grabbed his travel duffel. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count has been updated. Will post one chapter for the next few days until Halloween.

The trip was long and uneventful. John dozed off a few times on the train, waking once to find that his head had slumped over onto Sherlock's shoulder. His flatmate either didn't notice (possible) or didn't mind (preferable). Nevertheless, John straightened quickly, wiping his mouth with a quick 'sorry'.

Sherlock glanced sidelong at him briefly but said nothing, returning to whatever he was staring at on his mobile. "She sent me a text that said to get a cab from the train station to the house. Said she was delayed tonight but would be by in the morning." 

"She won't even be there tonight?" 

"Appears that way. Perhaps intentionally." Sherlock hummed. "Ooh, that's rather good, if you think about it. We'll have to play along." 

"Er... play along? I'm not following." 

"They think someone is breaking into their house — it's _not_ a _ghost_ , don't look at me like that, John, _honestly —_ so they make up a farce, maybe have some loud conversations about it when out and about in the village if they're smart, insisting on some sudden emergency that simply must be addressed tonight. Small towns like this are the perfect gossip mill. _Ohh_ , I must say I'm ashamed I didn't think of that sooner. That's clever."

"What’s that?"

“A sting, John!”

“You think they'd go through so much trouble? Why not just tell you what this case is really about? You'll find out sooner or later, anyway — unless they're underestimating you.” 

"I took it upon myself to research the ownership of the house while you rested." 

"Rested." John snorted. "You make me sound like a Victorian maiden. I've worked fifty hours at the clinic this week, and had planned on a quiet eveni—" 

Sherlock smirked. "Save your strength. Wouldn't want to get yourself too worked up now." 

"Oh, come off it. Berk." 

"As I was saying, the house is currently in the process of being listed. The village owned it for over twenty years, after the previous owners lost it." 

"It must have some history, then." 

"Indeed. Haven't got that far in my research yet, but... we've nearly arrived. I'll continue more tonight. Maybe there will be something in the house that will give us a clue as to why someone wants to break in. Repeatedly, even." 

"They mentioned that something with sentimental value was stolen, but they didn't mention whether that was all that was taken. Could be that the thieves made off with a whole lot and their family heirloom or whatever just got mixed in. Seems likely that in an historical house there would be some historical... stuff."

Sherlock hummed, glancing at John in that way that always made him feel like slightly less of an idiot. 

"Indeed, John," Sherlock murmured, continuing to stare for just a moment longer before bending down to collect his bag from the floor.

John cleared his throat. "And you're fully prepared for the disappointment if it turns out to just be some squatters looking for a place to stay the night?" 

"Of course I'm prepared, but it doesn't mean I certainly won't still be disappointed."

oOoOoOoOo 

The village was a short drive from the train station and John imagined that it was probably quite charming during daylight as they drove through the tree-and-shop-lined streets. He wondered if they'd be here long enough to give his patronage to the small bakery with the cobblestone steps, or just to simply walk the streets, admiring the fall foliage. He'd packed an extra set of clothes; he wasn't sure how long this case would take and one can never have too many pairs of clean pants. 

At the end of the main road, the car turned left and slowed to a stop in front of a wrought iron gate. The house beyond it was on a slight hill, giving it a rather foreboding presence. John shook his head, chuckling to himself as he unbuckled his seatbelt. _Too many horror movies_ , he mentally scolded as he lugged his bag behind Sherlock. 

A large chain was looped around the gate, complete with a very industrial-looking lock. It was shiny; new, then. Probably installed recently because of the burglaries. He mentioned this aloud to Sherlock, who was digging in the pockets of his coat, and was rewarded with a smile. 

"Yes, I think so." 

"Don't suppose our mystery clients left us a key?" 

"Mm... nope. But—" Sherlock brandished his lock-picking kit with a flourish, apparently having unearthed it from his coat depths. "—when has that ever stopped me?" With an eyebrow wiggle, he made quick work of the lock, tossing it aside and unwinding the chain with a small grunt. "They're not messing about." 

John collected the lock from the dirt and followed Sherlock through the gate, winding the chain around it once they were through and locking it on the inside. "In case our friendly neighbourhood squatter-burglars also come prepared with their own lock-picking kits." He pulled some ivy down and arranged it so the lock was partially covered and turned to find Sherlock with an odd expression on his face. 

"Alright?" 

Sherlock spun on his heel and marched up the path to the house on his long legs, forcing John to scramble to catch up, his duffle bag bumping hard against his back with each step. 

"They could have provided us with a key to the house, at least," John muttered. "They knew we were supposed to arrive tonight." 

Sherlock didn't answer, but pulled out his lockpick again and within minutes, they found themselves in the front hall.

John dropped his duffle to the floor with a heavy thump and looked around. The house was dark, though the moonlight coming in the large window behind them cast a faint glow. Sherlock fumbled around for a light switch and John whistled under his breath as the room filled with light. It was a massive front hall with a curving staircase to the right and a beautiful wood floor. A corridor stretched in front of them toward the back of the house and appeared to be lined with several doors on each side. To their immediate left was a set of double doors, though their modern glass design seemed at odds with the opulence of the rest of the house that he could see. 

"Well. This is quite the place," he couldn't help marvelling. 

Sherlock nodded briskly, taking off down the corridor. 

"I think I'll make some tea. Take my bag upstairs with yours and choose a room." 

John blinked, unsure if Sherlock realised what it sounded like he was asking, but in typical Sherlockian fashion he did not elaborate or balk at his statement, merely half-turned with an eyebrow raised until John nodded and picked up both bags. Satisfied, Sherlock disappeared into the darker end of the corridor.

John turned to the stairs, amused in spite of himself. Compared to the grand entryway, the second floor was somewhat plain. A series of bedrooms lined one wall, and a quick glance told John they were all nearly identical. Not wanting to breach their hosts' privacy even more than they already were, he ignored the largest bedroom, dropped his bag in a smaller one, then Sherlock's in another, closest to the stairs. He doubted Sherlock would get much sleep tonight anyway, but at least that meant that his night prowling wouldn't keep John awake. 

Walking back downstairs, he was pleased to find a steaming cup of tea waiting for him, though his flatmate was nowhere to be found. He sat at the large wooden table, tracing a finger idly over the surface and stifling a yawn. The kitchen was large, with an island situated in the middle, and a comfortable mix of modern appliances and touches of history, such as the probably original tiled backsplash above the sink. Glancing around the room and stifling another yawn, John noticed a second cup of tea next to the kettle. Smiling, he rinsed his own mug and grabbed the second, going off in search of his scatter-brained flatmate. 

He found him in the front room, curled up in one of the uncomfortable looking chairs, reading a slim book. Not wanting to startle him in case he was lost in thought, John paused and watched for a moment. He could perfectly picture him as a little boy, nose deep in whatever topic had caught his interest. Sherlock rarely ever talked about his childhood, but John thought some things probably hadn't changed much. 

Sherlock glanced up from his book then with a small smile, motioning John over and accepting the still-warm mug. 

"Thank you, John." 

John had already turned to go upstairs when he remembered something Sherlock had said on the train earlier. 

"That thing you said on the train. About the owners setting up a sting? What'd you mean?" 

Sherlock had already turned his attention back to his book but he hummed inquisitively. After a beat, he looked up again. "Oh. Just an errant thought. Nothing more to it." 

"Sherlock, if you think the thief might be coming back tonight, then I should probably—"

"Yes, you'll need your rest. I've a feeling tomorrow will be where all the excitement is waiting. You did bring your gun, didn't you?" 

"Of course, I did." 

"Keep it close but go on to bed. I'll probably turn in myself soon." Sherlock stretched and yawned loudly. "Pretty knackered."

John hesitated. He didn't think he'd ever heard Sherlock willingly admit to being tired. 

"Goodnight, John. I'll be sure to notify you if I find myself in any trouble." 

He sighed and made his way up to bed, his eyelids growing heavy almost immediately as he laid down. The bed was surprisingly comfortable. Just as he drifted off, he heard some quiet thumping in the room next door. Pleased that Sherlock really did hold true to his word, he fell asleep. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [warning: some violence and mention of a child's death in this chapter.]

Sherlock had absolutely no intention to retire to bed, despite what he'd told his flatmate, not when there was something interesting finally happening. 

The texts from E, the owner of the house, had come through earlier, even before he and John had left the flat. Sherlock knew she wouldn't be home when he and John arrived, and that was what had pushed him over the initial hesitancy. The case was a six, at best, probably even lower on his interest scale, but there was something familiar about both E and her husband that had intrigued Sherlock. They knew him, of that he was certain. But he didn't — to the best of his ability — remember ever meeting either of them. 

Sherlock settled further into the chair, picking up his cooled tea and taking a sip as he thought. The book he'd been reading — skimming, really — had been discarded on the floor. He had merely wanted to seem nonchalant and busy to encourage John to retire to bed for the night. He knew his friend and flatmate would sleep even more lightly than usual and Sherlock knew that he would be grateful for his presence if the clients' theory about thieves turned out to be correct. Though Sherlock was perfectly capable of holding his own against a baddie or two, backup in the sleek form of John's handgun was also welcome. And much less bruising. 

Clients who remembered Sherlock without the latter having any recollection of them usually meant one of a few things was true. The first and most common was that they were fans. Sherlock had had his fair share of those already, but these two didn't seem to fit the pattern. Usually, fans would make themselves known either on Sherlock or John's blogs or both. If they even bothered with inventing a case for him to solve, it was always transparently merely for show. The only thing they ever wanted was a chance to say they'd met him, visited Baker Street, perhaps snap a picture and babble embarrassingly, and then be on their merry way. Sometimes he wore the hat. On only one occasion so far, a fan had pushed past wanting a simple celebrity meet-and-greet and crossed the line into stalker behavior. John had made quick work of that person. Sherlock smiled to himself remembering the look on the man's face as it smushed into their wallpaper, his arm twisted uncomfortably behind his back by none other than Captain John H. Watson, who growled something in his ear too quietly for Sherlock to hear (shame, really) and shoved the offender nearly down the stairs. He hadn't bothered them again. Their new clients didn't seem to fit into this category, since they didn't seem to even recognise John, which led Sherlock to believe they probably weren't recording each police briefing where the duo made an appearance. Not superfans, then. 

The second type of person who seemed to know Sherlock was family members with grievances. These people often wanted vengeance for their criminal sibling or son or cousin, whose poor choices had unceremoniously got them placed behind bars. These family members always blamed Sherlock for the misguided path their loved one had found themselves on. They were often violent, or at least had grandiose ideas (too many mafia movies, perhaps) about the type of violence they wanted to enact on Sherlock, as a representative of the entire justice system at large. _Sentiment_. This type was unpleasant but usually easy to handle. A quick threat or a call to the Yard usually took care of them. Their new clients didn't seem to fit this category either; they had been polite, not angry, and had not mentioned any other family members. 

It was possible that these people, whoever they were, had known Sherlock in a previous time in his life, he considered. His early twenties were a likely time, as much of that decade he'd spent high off his tits, stumbling through dark alleys and frequently finding himself in parts of London he'd never visit on purpose. But once again, these didn't seem like the type to frequent doss houses or back alleys, though the gentleman did have a rather grizzled look about him. A tattoo on his right wrist, barely visibly poking out from the edge of his shirtsleeve had looked to be a prison tattoo. It was fresh, done in the last decade or so, if Sherlock had to guess. 

They'd seemed to know him beyond his reputation as a consulting detective. 

That left only one possibility, but the implications of that wasn't one that he wished to poke at tonight. It was possible, especially given the age of the couple, that he had known them earlier than his drug addict days. It was possible that they were spectres from his own past, from a childhood he held very few memories of, save vague recollections of an Uncle called Rudi and a chemistry set. 

Pressing against the arm rests, he rose to his feet. His tea had long gone cold, and he thought if he was going to be up for awhile, he fancied another cup. Standing in the centre of the room, he glanced around. The room had a very modern feel; at direct odds with the rest of the house. There were a few shelves with an artfully arranged collection of books on them. He didn't even have to look at the titles to know they probably prominently featured history books about the village, perhaps some local architecture and art. Fluff books. It was as though this room had been designed purely for show. He wondered what purpose this room had served in its original floor plan. There was a large window, but no curtains or shades at all. During the day, it would receive plenty of sunlight. A conservatory, perhaps. There was nothing else in the large room at all except for the pair of uncomfortable chairs and a small side table. A smooth area on the wall may have once been a fireplace, but had been replaced with a frankly quite ugly slab of marble. 

He'd have a poke around tonight, get a feel for the house. If he was lucky, the thieves would try and break in tonight and he and John could be well on their way back home before noon tomorrow. But he could be patient. If the thieves didn't appear tonight, it would give them another day to better prepare. Most likely when the homeowners returned, they'd be able to fill in some of the missing details. But for now, Sherlock would see what he could find. 

He made his way up to his room to collect his laptop. He'd bring it down to the kitchen, make himself a nice cup of tea and see what he could dig up on the internet. 

Sherlock glanced in the direction of John's door as he entered his own room; John's was open just a crack and no sound or light was coming from it. Sleeping soundly, then. Good. He'd let him sleep, but he knew John would be ready in an instant if Sherlock needed him. The thought comforted him. He grabbed his laptop and charger from his bag, tossing it on the bed once again. Creeping quietly down the stairs, he listened to each creak and groan the old house made around him as it settled. It was nearly midnight. Though most robberies happened during the day, when people were likely not to be home, if the thief knew that the homeowners were going to be gone, they would most likely plan their attack to happen in the middle of the night to attract the least amount of attention. 

On his way back to the kitchen, Sherlock poked his head into the first room on the right, which turned out to be an office. It was tidy, museum-like like the rest of the house, but this room at least showed signs that people had been living here. There was a cup on the desk filled with pens and an old fashioned ledger book. An empty mug sat on the edge of the desk, the inside stained brown from use. Sherlock walked the circumference of the room, looking for anything that might give a clue as to the reasons for the break-ins. So far from what he had seen of the house, he couldn't imagine it. 

A grin spread across his face as he slid his palm along the wall behind a corner lamp. Concealed in the wall, disguised as part of the wood panelling for anyone with a lesser untrained eye, was a square door with another smaller section. He pressed against a fake knot in the wood and a keypad was revealed. 

"Ohhhh... a vault. What are you hiding in here, hm? Must be something good, all locked up like this. Now let's see... where would a sexagenarian such as our lovely host keep the..." Sherlock ducked his head, feeling around the edge of the desk. "Aha! So predictable." 

He peeled a piece of paper from the underside of the drawer, its sellotape brittle and crumbling with age. On it was scrawled 1-0-3-1-6-6. He pressed the numbers on the keypad carefully, his excitement rising even as he tried to tamp it down. _Probably nothing but some boring paperwork inside._ But still the thrill of the forbidden beckoned. 

The vault door swung open on creaky hinges, their screech loud in the quiet room. Sherlock held his breath as the contents were revealed. He pulled out a small stack of papers, carefully arranged and clipped together, their edges crinkled and yellowed like the passcode paper had been. They were newspaper clippings. 

He carried the stack to the kitchen, spreading them out on the table, his laptop and tea completely forgot. 

_LOCAL BOY REPORTED MISSING, FAMILY DISTRAUGHT_

_SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILD OF LOCAL JUDGE GOES MISSING_

_THE SEARCH CONTINUES FOR BORLEY BOY_

Each article was more of the same, the coverage and attention dwindling as the community lost interest. The boy's name was never listed, for privacy concerns certainly. None of the articles mentioned ever finding the boy either, Sherlock noticed. 

A loud scrape made him jump. A door in the back of the kitchen he hadn't noticed earlier was ajar. Certainly he hadn't left it open. Perhaps John had when he'd come in earlier. Curious, Sherlock went to it and listened. A blast of cold air hit him as he flicked on the lights. It was a cellar, its stone stairs worn. He hesitated on the top step, thinking. He should probably go wake John — his partner would be furious with Sherlock if he got himself into some sort of trouble while he was sleeping a floor away, unaware. He made a deal with himself; he'd have a quick look round and if anything seemed amiss, he'd call John right away. 

Sherlock's foot paused mid-air before landing on the last step. Before him on the cold hard stone floor of the cellar was a body. A crimson puddle was spreading around his head, further and further, seeping into the stone and staining it forever. The man's body was twisted unnaturally and his face was frozen around a scream. Sherlock sucked in a breath and squeezed his eyes shut. The man on the floor was his father. But that was impossible because his father had been dead since... since... 

Opening his eyes once more, he was startled to find the floor in front of him empty, the stone pristine. 

His father had been dead for twenty-five years. But Sherlock suddenly remembered the night he died as though it was yesterday. Jumping off the last step, he turned into the first room, intent on completing the memory of that night. After his father had fallen to his death down the stairs, Sherlock had found a small bottle in his quickly-cooling hand. It was important, he remembered that much. He'd come into this room and — and.... with a growl of frustration, he pressed his hands against his eyes. 

_And then...what? Think, Sherlock, think!_

The room he entered was dimly lit and clearly used for storage. The stones in the walls looked wobbly, as though the cement holding them together had given up the ghost. He pressed one of them and a chunk crumbled off in his hand. 

In a rush, the memory circuit completed in his head. He'd come into this room that night to hide from the adults who were scaring him. He'd been in shock, he had enough distance and maturity now to realise. Victor had taken the small bottle that he'd been holding, the one that his father had lost his life over, and put it somewhere. 

_Victor._ The name slipped from his lips as his fingers gripped around a loose stone in the wall. It came off in his hand, revealing the very same small bottle. He pulled it out with shaking fingers. 

"We knew you'd be a good boy and help us." A voice purred in his ear. Sherlock froze, his heart rate kicking up a notch. The bottle was a lead weight in his hand. The cold metal of a gun barrel — _John's gun, he'd know it anywhere —_ pressed against his temple. 

_"_ Tell me where John is and I'll help you." 

The woman laughed and the sound echoed harshly off the stone walls. "Oh your little friend?" She waved him off. "Come on, there's something I want to show you." 

She pushed against his back with a surprisingly firm hand. Sherlock walked out of the room and further into the cellar. It felt as though they were walking into the depths of the earth. At the end of the corridor, a single bulb cast flickering shadows on the damp walls and a heavy metal door. Reaching around him, she slid the handle and pushed it open. The room beyond was a cold storage room, cluttered with things that Sherlock's eyes couldn't make out in the dim. The door shut behind his captive. The only light came from a small barred window, high up on the wall. Sherlock quickly scanned the room, looking for John, but it was no use. His eyes settled on a table in the centre of the room where a large rectangular box was reflecting the moonlight in its metal sides. The woman gave him a shove from behind and he walked closer to the table. Shuffling to the side so she could keep the gun pressed against his temple, she worked the latch and the box opened with a loud creak. Sherlock leaned down, close enough that he could peer in. A light flickered to life overhead and Sherlock thanked his years of detective work that he did not react viscerally to the sight that lay before him. 

Inside the metal box was the small body of a child. Its face was covered by a cloth and it had been wrapped tightly in more of the same, strips of white criss-crossing its small limbs. Sherlock inhaled as everything clicked into place.

"That's your son, isn't it? That's the boy who went missing. They never found his body because you kept it here all this time." He nodded, his confidence in the deduction momentarily drowning out the panic he could feel rising as he scanned the room. "What was your plan, exactly?" 

"Yes, that's my son. Victor." The woman's voice wobbled and for a moment, Sherlock's chest felt tight. "You have the serum. You can fix this. We've waited so long. Please..." Her voice hardened and the gun pressed harder into his temple, doubtless to cover up the fact that her hands were shaking.

"It won't work." He couldn't be certain what this mystery potion even contained. All he knew was that twenty-five years ago, Victor's father had wanted it so badly he had killed for it and now they were back, ready to kill again just to try and bring their son back to life. "But I'll try." 

She nodded and started to pull the dressing from his face. 

From somewhere far away, Sherlock heard a yell. It was a sound he knew intimately, would know anywhere. It was John and John was in danger. 

Without a second's thought about the gun that was still pointed at his head, Sherlock ran from the room, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste. The glass bottle slipped in his sweaty grip and he shoved it in his pocket as he skidded to a stop on the stone floor. Though the corridor was dim, the identity of the person on the floor was unmistakable.

Behind him, the woman hadn't even moved. Now, she chuckled. 

"Unless he's stronger than he looks, he's already dead. Eugene made sure of that. Now, quickly. Give me the serum, boy, and this can all be over." 

She stretched her hand out, but Sherlock caught the way her eyes slid past him and into the darkness beyond. 

Sherlock reached into his pocket, certain that she could see how badly his hands were trembling. He wondered what she'd do if he dropped the vial on the stone floor. It would shatter and this would all be over. If John really was dead... Sherlock swallowed as he stretched his hand to meet hers. The thought was too terrible to even complete. As soon as her fingers scraped his, he grasped her wrist and spun her around, pushing her against the wall. She yelped as her cheek scraped the stone. 

From behind him, Sherlock heard a sound. In one quick movement, he twisted the gun from her grasp and hit her over the head with it. She slumped to the ground, but he didn't even pause, his fury nearly blinding him. He spun around, dropping to his knees and grasping John’s wrist. Pulseless. Next to John's head lay a syringe. Sherlock's throat felt too tight and he squeezed John's fingers. _No. No no no._

Mr Trevor came around the corner then. Lifting his head, Sherlock didn't think, just shot. Mr Trevor hit the floor with a satisfying thump. Behind him, Louise Trevor stirred. Sherlock shifted, pointing the gun at her head. 

“You killed him…” Sherlock’s voice shook, but his hand was steady. “You killed my parents, and now you've killed my friend. But killing all of them won't bring your son back.” 

Her head slumped back down and she was motionless. 

Sherlock blinked furiously to try and clear his vision. John couldn't be gone. He couldn't. Not before.... well, _everything._ They had so much left to do together still. He felt numb. Cold. _You're going into shock,_ his brain supplied helpfully. 

_"Sherlock."_ The sound was so quiet that Sherlock wasn't even sure he had heard it, floating across the middle distance on a beam of dusty light. His throat burned; he willed himself not to cry, to _think,_ but his mind was stuck on a loop of _John's dead, John's dead, John's dead_ _._

 _"Sherlock."_ It came again, a bit firmer this time, still not a whisper but merely the slightest disturbance in the sound waves. He did not to turn around, though the voice niggled at his memory. 

"Blackbeard." 

Sherlock pinched his eyes shut as the memory clicked into place, a flood of them, slamming into him with the force of a gale wind. 

_'I'm a pirate. Name's Redbeard!'_

_Late night giggles._

_Sherlock coming home from school, his curly hair sticking to his cheeks as he curled into a ball, the bed beneath him shaking with his sobs. Victor’s comforting presence._

_The seánce._

_The smoke._

_Victor_.

His friend. His only friend, all those years ago. Sherlock turned slowly to see him in the corner, his eyes wide and serious. 

"You're grown up now." Victor nodded seriously. "But I knew it had to be you." 

"Victor..." 

"Use the serum. Save him. Save your friend." 

Scrabbling around on his hands and knees, he found the vial where he had dropped it, thanking his lucky stars that it was still intact. He was breathing hard and his hands trembled violently as he uncapped the vial of liquid. He hesitated, looking up at Victor. “But what about you? You could...” he faltered. Victor could live. His life had been taken too soon. Who was Sherlock to decide who lived or died? In his mind, he recalled overhearing Mummy’s words to Father, fretting over playing god. 

But Victor gave him a look that was much too mature for a seven year old. “You can’t save me. And with my parents gone, there isn’t much keeping me here. I think my time is nearly up.” Sherlock nodded, tipping the liquid into John’s mouth. 

The room held its breath, and at the gasping, choking inhale of the man on the floor, the man who still had so much life left to live, Sherlock finally felt he could breathe once again too. 

"John..." 

Sherlock's brain kicked into gear fully once again, and though it took several stabbing tries before he was able to unlock his phone, he eventually managed to dial 999. He pressed the speakerphone button so he could rest John’s head in his lap and hold the gun. But after a moment it became clear that the gun was unnecessary; Louise Trevor was dead, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

Sherlock ended the call with the emergency services as soon as he'd barked out the address of the house. He wanted to pace but the idea of leaving John, of not feeling his heart beating once again beneath Sherlock's fingertips was an impossibility right now. 

“ _Goodbye,_ _Sherlock_.” Sherlock looked down at John. His eyes were shut and though he was now breathing shallowly, his lips were still tinged blue. 

_"No, Sherlock. It was me. I’m— I think it’s my time to go now, to move on. I’m… there’s nothing keeping me here anymore. It’s time to go.”_

“Victor,” Sherlock breathed. "You saved him." His first real friend in the world was becoming harder to see now; the translucent edges of his human shape blending into nothingness, his once-pale cheeks and hands now impossible to distinguish from the chilly air of the cellar. His eyes were dark circles, endless pools in the dim light. Sherlock swallowed hard. 

"Thank you, Redbeard. See you soon, Cap'n." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're thinking to yourself, wow this sure lacked the polish and spit-shine of previous chapters, then you are absolutely correct. This chapter (and probably the next) are unbetaed because I am a terrible procrastinator and my beta is busy with real life. I literally finished typing this less than an hour ago and immediately schlapped it up here, scarcely making it on the 30th as planned.
> 
> Story of my life.
> 
> Anyway. Tl;dr, Don't come after my beta with pitchforks - any mistakes are all mine.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my wonderful beta and friend, J.Baillier for encouraging this story from the very beginning and for making this the best it could be. 
> 
> Thank you also to 88thParallel and ThornyPeach for their unwavering support and excitement. <3

John settled back against his chair, adjusting the union jack cushion behind his back. He smiled at Sherlock when a cup of tea was deposited in his hands — milk, no sugar, just the way he liked it. Sherlock set a second cup in front of Mycroft, who was perched at the table and looking stiff as always. Sherlock disappeared behind John briefly into the kitchen and returned with his own cup of tea, sitting down in his chair and crossing his legs elegantly.

“John, you look well. I trust that you were given the finest care while in hospital. Perhaps Sherlock even allowed the medical staff to do their job occasionally.” Mycroft’s voice had a hint of tease to it, and John lifted his eyebrows amusedly.

“Nearly recovered, ta. My doctors were… fine. Sherlock was wonderful, though.” He recalled waking up, the fuzzy confusion and burning sensation in his lungs, his throat, his mouth. Sherlock had been dozing in a chair nearby, but John had hardly recognised him. His wrinkled clothes had hung limply on his already thin frame, his eyes had had dark circles beneath them and the lower third of his face was covered in stubble. As if sensing John’s return to consciousness, he had stirred immediately, but had still seemed completely shocked to find John watching him. John had been given a summary of what had happened, and had sent Sherlock home for a shower once he made the nurses promise that John would be looked after.

In the three days since arriving back home to Baker Street, John had been recovering nicely, and knew some of that was definitely owed to Sherlock’s attentiveness.

“Mycroft. Though I believe that you may have been curious about John’s wellbeing, certainly you didn’t really need to come all this way for an update. A phone call, or even a visit from one of your minions would have sufficed.” Sherlock levelled a look at Mycroft over the rim of his teacup. “Why are you here?”

Mycroft swallowed and though John thought he looked slightly uncomfortable, he still managed to do so with an air of pompousness that only he could achieve. “I wanted to… discuss… things. With you.”

Sherlock sat back in his chair; eyebrow elegantly raised.

“You want to tell me what really happened to our parents. Well, go on then.” His hand waved elegantly in the air, every bit the picture of bored nonchalance, but John knew better. He could see the tightness in his jaw, the crease that formed between his brows whenever he was faced with a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. Sherlock had been oblivious to all he hadn’t known about his parents’ death until recently. As curious as John was, he didn’t think he should stay to listen. This was —

“I rather think this should be a family affair.” Mycroft’s posture didn’t alter in the slightest, but the exclusion was telegraphed loud and clear. John pressed his palms into the arms of his chair in preparation for standing and leaving the room but Sherlock’s voice stopped him. It was firm but quiet, meant for his ears only.

“John. Stay. Please.”

Turning his head, he addressed Mycroft with a voice that booked no arguments.

“John is family. John _stays_.”

If Mycroft was surprised by the vehemence in Sherlock’s tone, he did not let on, merely raising a hand in an agreeable gesture.

“Very well. Why don’t you start by telling us what you remember? I am aware that had I asked the same question — and we did ask throughout your childhood — even a week ago, you would not have been able to answer that question with any accuracy. Indeed, the trauma was so great that you would have stared at me blankly, the memories repressed beyond conscious recollection. For what it’s worth, Sherlock, I am sorry that you had to experience such trauma, especially alone. I should have been there.”

“I wasn’t alone.” Sherlock said quickly, leaning forward and shaking his head. “Victor was with me the night it happened and he was with me again the other night. He was — he was there the whole time and he helped me. Saved my life. Saved John’s too.”

"Of course. Go on." 

Sherlock inhaled, leaning his head back against his chair, closing his eyes and bringing his steepled hands to rest against his mouth in a familiar gesture that John had come to think of as his thinking pose. John waited, watching him carefully for any signs of upset. After a moment or two, Sherlock spoke.

“There were… people. Victor’s parents. They came for dinner. They were pushy and rude. I didn’t like them.”

Sherlock’s voice had lost its usual edge. He sounded small and childlike, lost in the memories.

“Mummy and Father didn’t like them much either. They were polite of course, but they were… uncomfortable. I could tell they didn’t want them to stay any longer than necessary. But they’d insisted that Mummy and Father conduct a— a séance to contact their dead son."

“During the seánce, Victor found out that he was actually dead, and started throwing things around. Mister Trevor told Father he knew all about the serum, though Father feigned ignorance and then... _oh._ The candles." 

Sherlock raised his eyes to Mycroft and was granted a nod in return. John leant forward in his chair, despite his internal promise to stay quiet and let the brothers discuss their own family memories. 

"Sorry, candles?"

Sherlock's eyes shifted to John's and there was warmth there, rather than annoyance at the intrusion. 

"My mother had lit candles. She believed it was encouraging to the spirits to have a calm and inviting environment." He shrugged. "I guess it worked. But how did Mummy die, Mycroft? The house is still there, though there were parts of it that felt different to me. Like..." Sherlock's hands moved in the air, searching for the words. "Like they'd been stripped. But I definitely remember smelling smoke in that cellar room. And Victor telling me to run."

Mycroft nodded.

"There was an altercation between the adults, the details of which were never clear. Neither Eugene nor Louise ever admitted outright to starting the fire, but Mummy was trapped in the library and succumbed to smoke inhalation before the fire department arrived. Neighbours saw the smoke and called emergency services. They found you beneath a tree in the backyard. You were sleeping and shivering, but physically uninjured. 

“You didn’t speak for months afterwards. Rudi had no idea what to do. But on your ninth birthday, I gave you a chemistry set, and we turned Rudi’s spare bedroom into a makeshift lab. You wrote to me nearly every day once I went back to school the next term, describing each of your experiments in lurid detail. When I came back for the summer holiday, you would still go days without talking, unless you had an experiment on. Then I couldn’t hardly get you to shut up about it.

"The Trevors were incarcerated for arson and involuntary manslaughter of our parents. They were implicated in their son’s murder, but it was dropped for incomplete evidence. His body was never found. It seems as though the first item on their agenda after being released from prison was to pick right back up where they'd left off in the house, though they got tied up in legality with the village because it was being listed. It had stood vacant for most of the time that they were imprisoned, likely because of its macabre history.

When they heard about your profession, it certainly must have seemed too good to be true. They fabricated a story that would pique your interest. I’m still not certain I understand what their plan involved, or if they even had one, but certainly it didn’t—”

“I do.” Sherlock was still quiet, withdrawn. John watched him carefully over the rim of his teacup. “I know why.”

Mycroft quirked an eyebrow. “Is there more? Was the police report I was given not the complete story?”

“They still had him. Victor. His body. They’d kept it—”

John’s hand clenched on his knee and he heard Mycroft suck a breath in through his teeth.

"Jesus..." 

Sherlock continued. “They’d kept him in a cold storage room, in a metal box … that’s where they’d planned to— to dispose of me when I was no longer needed, too. And I imagine that's where they'd been planning to bring John before I... interrupted.”

“But why?” John interjected. “Why go to all the trouble? Why did they need you?”

“Because I was the only one who knew where the vial was hidden.” Sherlock shrugged, but it was stiff, jerky. John swallowed down the urge to comfort him. “They thought they could just… they wanted to bring Victor back from the dead. That's what they wanted Father to do too. But I don’t think— I don’t think that’s how it worked. Thankfully, though, it worked on John.” Sherlocked lifted his eyes and met John’s. He gave him a small smile but Sherlock was looking _through_ him, still lost in memory.

“Father's serum was, in its simplistic form, a liquid shot of adrenaline. It worked to jump-start John’s heart because it had only recently stopped—"

Sherlock's laser-sharp focus returned, his eyes boring into John as though reminding himself that he really was alive and talking. John shivered, imagining how truly awful that must have for him. He'd tried to get Sherlock to talk about that night, to tell him what had happened, but he wouldn't. 

“I wonder…” Sherlock started, and then halted. "Will Victor be given a proper burial now? He deserves it. And I would like to see that police report. And the original. From the night... that this all happened. The first time. There's something..."

He trailed off, his lips pressed together. "I'd like to see our parents' notebooks too. Both of them." 

Mycroft lifted his eyes to his younger brothers’ and something passed between them, something unspoken. He gave a small nod and climbed to his feet, shifting his umbrella from his right to left hand and extending his right to John.

“Pleased to see you’re on the mend, Doctor Watson.”

John nodded and shook Mycroft’s hand but his eyes never left Sherlock, who was sitting ramrod straight in his chair, his eyes glazed and unfocussed again. Mycroft let himself out.

“You okay?”

After several minutes of silence, John gave up and stood, collecting their tea things and busying himself in his bedroom. When he came down to brush his teeth a few hours later, Sherlock’s bedroom door was shut tightly and the man was no longer in his chair. John pressed his hand against the connecting door from the bathroom in silent solidarity as he shut off the lights.

oOoOoOoOo

Victor’s burial was held a week later, in Borley. John bought a new suit for the occasion, despite Sherlock’s protests that he needn’t even come.

“He saved my life; I think I owe it to him to at least say goodbye properly.”

Sherlock had turned away at that and scoffed, but not before John got a glimpse of a damp pair of glass-green eyes.

Victor was buried next to his parents, on a grassy patch of land right on the edge of the cemetery. The cemetery was small, with only twenty or thirty plots total. As John knelt in the damp grass to inspect the tombstone, engraved with a skull and crossbones beneath the dates, he could sense Sherlock moving away from him, back toward the black car they’d ridden in with Mycroft. He wasn’t surprised; sentimentality was hardly Sherlock’s forte, even if this had been his idea.

But when John stood up a moment later, giving the stone an affectionate pat, his flatmate wasn’t impatiently waiting at the car like he’d expected. Instead, he found him a few metres away, bent over a different stone with Mycroft hovering over his shoulder.

John walked closer. There were two names on the stone, the birthdates different but the day of death the same. Realising who them belonged to, John halted, wanting to give the brother some privacy in this moment. But Sherlock glanced back over his shoulder with a small smile so John stepped to his side.

“My parents. Emily and Joseph Holmes. Wonderful people. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say they would’ve been pleased to meet you, John.”

John pressed his palm against Sherlock’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “And I think I would’ve loved to have met them too. Thankfully, I think I’ve got the next best thing.”

Sherlock glanced down, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a half-smile.

"Thank you, John. Let's go home." 

oOoOo The End oOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been lingering in the dark corners of my mind for over a year now and I am pleased to finally share it with you all. I've always loved ghost stories and writing one proved to be just as much fun (and challenging!) as I imagined it would be. Thanks for joining me and for loving my little Sherlock and his ghostly best friend (and his live, real human one too!) with me. <3 
> 
> x - elsie

**Author's Note:**

> wight _/wīt/_
> 
> LITERARY  
> a spirit, ghost, or other supernatural being.


End file.
